The largest caucus of House Republicans is calling for an increase in the Social Security retirement age, setting up a potential clash with President Joe Biden over spending on popular entitlement programs.
The Republican Study Committee, representing about 80% of House Republicans, proposed in its fiscal 2025 budget to tie the Social Security eligibility age to life expectancy. Additionally, they suggest reducing benefits for top earners who aren’t close to retirement and phasing out auxiliary benefits for the highest earners.
This proposal could lead to a battle with Biden, who vowed to stop any attempts to cut Social Security, Medicare, or raise the retirement age in his recent State of the Union address.
The caucus’s chairman, Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), argued that Biden’s resistance to changes in Social Security policy could result in automatic benefit cuts come the program’s trust fund insolvency in 2033. Hern emphasized that a gradual change in retirement age has been a common feature of past policy negotiations.
Despite former President Donald Trump’s mixed stance on entitlements, the Republican Study Committee’s budget proposal is more aggressive than recent proposals from other Republicans. It suggests policy changes that could reduce spending on Social Security by $1.5 trillion and Medicare by $1.2 trillion over the next decade.
The proposal aims to balance the federal budget by 2031 by outlining $16.6 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade. It also suggests Medicare spending reductions by introducing a premium support model and moving graduate medical education payments into a separate trust fund.
In contrast, Biden’s fiscal 2025 budget proposal suggests increasing the tax rate on individuals earning more than $400,000 a year to support Medicare. The White House also hinted at potential changes to the payroll tax structure, which currently only applies to the first $168,600 of an individual’s income.
Ultimately, the House Republicans and President Biden seem to be on a collision course over the future of entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, with policy proposals diverging on how to address the impending insolvency of the programs.